Greaps 20g Nuvo Black

Greaps · Jul 12, 2017

Hi, forgive the low quality photo's from my discount phone, I will be using my wife's phone for future updates.
Going to be a simple tank, I am downgrading for a home remodel.
When cycled moving over a clown fish pair, snowflake female, black snowflake male, a midas blenny and a cleaner shrimp along with a couple soft corals.

20g Nuvo Black
Aquamaxx Prism Led 24in (incoming)
Jebao PP4 wave maker
Smart ATO

Here we go, this just happened!
Live sand, dry rock +Dr. Tims +salt water from my 50g breakdown.

RamsReef · Jul 13, 2017

Going to be a nice little tank

Greaps · Jul 16, 2017

Waters cleared, started construction of a little internal filter. It could easily of been built with a plastic bottle but I wanted to mess around cutting glass since this skill could be carried over to bigger DIYs.

Wondering if the 15w led is ample for soft corals the tank is shallow. Probably upgrade the light later down the road, a used Kessil 350 would be cool. Or a new Coral Box Moon might fit the bill too.

Greaps · Jul 16, 2017

One more note, I received the aquamaxx prism led and I wasn't impressed with it. So its being returned. It didn't look good over the rimless tank in my opinion and I wasn't satisfied with the mounting legs.

Moving on with lighting; options.... Used Kessil 350, a metal halide... I do like the controls and it doesn't need to be high par, but am interested in a small halide to try it out.

Greaps · Jul 17, 2017

Lighting is done, purchased a Coral Box Moon Led. Glass filter was not a success, hard to find the sweet spot on the bottle to fit the MJ-1200 inlet snugly. Water bottle worked perfectly as expected. Only filter I plan to run is this little mechanical floss filter for now. Thinking I could run a cheato reactor off my MJ return but I don't want to go to crazy for now.

Greaps · Jul 17, 2017

Quick picture of the mechanical filter.

Greaps · Jul 19, 2017

Got a Coral Box Moon Led, running LPS mode for now, going to mess around more with settings tomorrow. Nice little light but it would look better hung higher than the included gooseneck.

Tested nitrate, tanks been wet for 10-11 days with live sand and dr.tims, nitrates tested positive, although a small amount. Im going to retest and think about moving the fish over tomorrow.

Greaps · Jul 20, 2017

Greaps · Jul 20, 2017

Need to clean up the ato container get that label off. Need to tie wrap the Led's cord to the goose-neck. Wires are otherwise managed with a wrap and surge protector box. Overall happy with how this is going. Fish, shrimp, and coral moved over successfully.

ATO is about 2g's. Led is just running an LPS program it has. Eventually I'll get around to making it more blue, the photo's are unedited and more blue that real life.

Greaps · Jul 21, 2017

Got my lights dialed in more blue for my liking. Corals seem acclimated and are opened up now except the neon toad. Fish seem well and good.

Thinking of putting in some maco algea and going that route. for more interest, and being I prolly wouldn't want to experiment with it on a larger tank figure do it now and see how i like it.

Its a hard call though looks so nice as it is haha

Greaps · Jul 25, 2017

Toad is opening up now, got a little upset during the transfer when it contacted the sinularia coral. No decent macro's or corals of interest at the LSF... Have to wait and see what I can do online shopping.

I have a bigger plan so corals need to fit into that. I want to upgrade into a much larger tank in November with hopefully some black friday deals to save some cash. I am looking at strongly at "custom aquariums" and SCA ( depending on custom prices) for a 48X30X30.
The idea is rock wall expanding foam and pukanai epoxied siliconed to the back wall. I want to go soft corals and LPS, with anthias as the main attraction, and still searching out other tank mates. NO TANGS.

So in summary for now the plan..:
48X30X30 (rock wall 3d background)
Corals: Soft, LPS, and gorgonias
Inverts: Feather Duster Worms, snails, cleaner shrimp, possible other shrimp
Fish: 7 Anthias Lyretail, 2 Neon Cleaner Wrasse, firefish 2-4, 1 algae blenny, thinking of other blueish fish, chromis have such a bad rap..

Greaps · Jul 26, 2017

1. Toad is open.
2. ATO container is roughly 2g's this lasted 6 days.
3. Obvious that this LED as a con does have disco ball effect at this shallow level.

4. Wish the Led didn't disco ball, I do appreciate a more blended spectrum but the controllability, and led blue florescent effects is good. I would ideally have an ATI with a blue led reefbrite.

5. Bought a new colt coral(pinkish) and alveopora coral (neon green) off DD today, should be here Friday. Hope they will be good condition and easy.

6. Bought more salt and a nano magnetic cleaner, water change will be late next week when salt arrives, have a little diatoms now but things looking good. I will do at least 50% WC.